On Books: ‘America 1933' reminds us of the misery of the Great Depression

Five years ago at this time, financial markets around the world were in turmoil. The meltdown and economic downturn that followed are widely characterized as the worst since the Great Depression. Reading Michael Golay's book "America 1933" is a stark reminder that the Great Recession wasn't even close to the misery of the early 1930s.

The book is subtitled "The Great Depression, Lorena Hickock, Eleanor Roosevelt and the Shaping of the New Deal." Hickock, a tough, first-rate reporter for The Associated Press, resigned her job when her friendship with America's new first lady became too close to maintain her objectivity.

Eleanor then recommended Lorena for a position with Harry Hopkins, who was organizing the first-ever federal relief program.

President Roosevelt had taken office in March. On May 1, the Commerce Department had announced unemployment was at 25 percent, 16 million people. Hopkins was a major player in FDR's promise for "bold, persistent experimentation" to address the economic woes

The notion of federal relief was so alien that Hopkins likened his task to the Aztecs being "asked suddenly to build an aeroplane." He sent Lorena on the road to report on conditions in every section of the country and make recommendations on how to best address the problems, primarily with a work relief program called the Civil Works Administration.

Lorena had grown up in the Dakotas, a homely and unloved daughter of a beast of a father who threw her out of the home when she was a young teen. (Years later when her sister asked Lorena to help pay for his funeral, she replied, "Send him to the glue factory.")

A fat, heavy-smoking, hard-drinking woman, Lorena's appeal to the prim and proper Eleanor Roosevelt baffled everyone, yet the two were devoted.

Lorena had seen a lot in her 42 years, but even she was shocked and sickened by the misery caused by the Depression. Or exacerbated by it.

In the coal mines of West Virginia, she saw children covered with sores from bathing in polluted creeks. A little boy ran off with his pet rabbit when his sister confided, "He thinks we are not going to eat it, but we are." In the Dakotas, a farm wife shared her recipe for soup made with Russian thistles — better known as tumbleweeds. "It don't taste so bad, only it ain't very filling," she said.

Things were not much better for unemployed city dwellers, who saw their middle-class lives dwindle until they were out on the street. Hardest hit were unemployed single women, who crowded together in rooming houses or rode subways all night for a nickel. "Single women? Why, they're just discards," a social worker told Lorena.

Lorena's reports were avidly read by Hopkins, Eleanor Roosevelt and the president, as well as other federal administrators. They helped get the right sorts of aid — appropriate clothing, surplus agricultural commodities, work — to the needy and alerted him to state and local officials who were playing politics with their desperate citizens.

Golay has used Lorena's reports, letters to the first lady, contemporary periodicals and other secondary sources to paint an unflinching portrait of this desperate time. He also does an excellent job presenting the larger picture of labor strikes, communist-party activities and farmer unrest to show just how complicated was the new Roosevelt administration's job in pulling America back from the brink of anarchy and apathy.

This quote from an article in The Nation in November 1933 summarizes the situation: "Probably there is hardly an American who would allow another man to starve on his doorstep if there was a loaf of bread in the house, but we are reaching a point where we are willing to let thousands die of starvation provided only they crawl out of sight to do it."